Hukkster, The Winklevoss-Backed Online Shopping Tool, Has Shut Down

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Hukkster, the New York City-based startup that created a price-monitoring app for online shopping, has shut down for good.

Hukkster, which was founded in 2012 and raised a total of $4.5 million dollars from a group of prominent tech and business investors including Winklevoss Capital, allowed users to tag items online they were interested in buying and receive alerts when they went on sale. Hukkster’s latest raise, a $1.5 million round, was announced in March. There are 25 people who list Hukkster as their current employer on LinkedIn.

The final closure was announced Friday in an email sent to Hukkster users, which was signed by Hukkster’s co-founders Erica Bell and Katie Finnegan. The message read:

“We are writing with the unfortunate news that Hukkster is now closed.

Thank you so very much for shopping with Hukkster over the years and supporting us in our mission to save you time and money on the brands you love.

It gave us great joy creating a tool to help you access your favorite products, must-haves, little somethings, special gifts, pick-me-ups, finishing touches and perfect accents. Please click here if you would like us to recover the product links from your Hukkster wish list and we will do our best to get you this in a timely manner.

We started Hukkster with nothing more than an idea and had the opportunity to build our dream team and make our vision a reality. While we’re sad to say goodbye, we hope our story inspires all of you to challenge the status quo.”

Hukkster’s webpage is now showing only a short message with numbers from the company’s history, saying:

“27 Months
822 Days
1,010,889 Hours Worked (Seriously)
315 Retail Partners
300,000 Happy Shoppers
887,207 Sale Alert Emails Sent
$39,037,108.00 Total Dollars Saved
Thank you for the opportunity to innovate, learn and grow!
Challenge yourself to change the status quo.
Now it’s time for a nap.

Love,
The Hukkster Family”

It’s a bit of an abrupt end for Hukkster, and users are convening on Twitter and Reddit to express their sadness about the closure. As recently as six weeks ago, Hukkster’s founders were talking to the press about their success and growth plans. In an interview with Insider Louisville at a startup event there last month, Finnegan said the Hukkster team was planning to expand to 25 or 20 people in the next year, with a five-year plan of reaching 60 employees. “We’re a very capital efficient company,” Finnegan reportedly said.

I’ve emailed Hukkster for more details on the closure and if any prior warning was provided to users, and will update here with any response I receive.

Below is a video of our own Jordan Crook interviewing Hukkster’s co-founders at an event in New York last summer:

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Crunchbase

Overview[Hukkster](http://hukkster.com) is an online shopping tool that tracks products on the sites you love and notifies you when they go on sale. In one simple step, the Hukkster bookmarklet installs in your browser bar and acts as an ever-present companion that organizes and optimizes your online shipping. With Hukkster, shoppers can liberate their inboxes from the clutter of daily deals and generic promotions …